Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions Memoranda

Memorandum by Council for the Protection
of Rural England (CPRE) (AFH 68)

INTRODUCTION

1. This paper summarises CPRE's interim
views in response to the call for evidence from the Urban Affairs
Sub-Committee of the Transport, Local Government and Regions Select
Committee for its inquiry on affordable housing. As agreed orally
with the Committee clerks, we intend to submit more detailed evidence
very shortly. Please note that the views here expressed are subject
to approval by CPRE's Policy Committee.

THE CURRENT
HOUSING DEBATE

2. CPRE believes a number of recent factors
have contributed to the renewed interest in Government housing
policy, and planning for housing in particular. Among other things,
the latest housing completions figures (which show that housing
output is at its lowest level since 1924) have been used by a
number of interested bodies to predict a crisis in homelessness
andinaccurately, in our viewconflate a number of
issues. Among these issues are: affordability of market housing
for key workers, in London and the South East especially; levels
of affordable housing provision more generally; homelessness and
use of temporary accommodation; the effects of revised PPG3 Housing
(2000); Green Belt policy; and the brown field-green field debate.

KEY ISSUES

3. Policies for the provision of new housing
are at the core of CPRE's concerns, in relation not only to planning
per se but also to the environmental, social and economic
well-being of the countryside. We have a record of close involvement
in this issue over more then 10 years. Our report Housing with
Hindsight (1996) showed the dramatic shortfall between the
need for affordable housing and the amount built, while vastly
more private market housing was built than had been projected.
We joined forces with Shelter, the TCPA and the NHBC for a national
inquiry into housing need in rural and urban areas in 1998. Progress
with changes to national guidance, however, has been limited:
the latest Circular 6/98 and the Rural White Paper contributed
only marginal improvements, some of which have not been taken
up by local authorities; PPG3 introduced the welcome requirement
for local authorities to co-ordinate housing strategy with planning,
but this has yet to produce significant results.

4. CPRE fully acknowledges the vital importance
of adequate provision to meet identified social housing need,
and we have in the past suggested ways in which this issue might
be addressed without causing unnecessary harm to the countryside.
We would highlight the following issues in the context of the
Sub-Committee's Inquiry:

 we believe that arguments that planning
constraints on green field housing are a significant contributory
cause of the shortage of affordable housing are flawed. Available
figures indicate that a) land supply is ample, even in the South
East; but b) developers are not always willing or required to
provide the sort of housing which is most needed and for which
sites have been identified;

 we believe there are grave dangers
inherent in simplistic approaches to this problem, such as confusing
simple market demand for housing with housing need;

 there has been a widespread failure
by local authorities and providers to make full use of the tools
already available to them, as indicated most recently by the DTLR's
own research Delivering Affordable Housing through Planning
Policy (February 2002).

 we would like to see stronger promotion
of the ways in which planning could help secure more affordable
housing, eg through clear policies in development plans for the
percentage of affordable housing to be required of developers,
and full implementation of PPG3 Housing;

 we would draw the Sub-Committee's
attention to examples of local authorities where good practice
is being followedeg in reviewing plans, removing of unsuitable
green field sites, applying the sequential test, actively promoting
the re-use of previously used urban land and buildings and integrating
housing strategies with planning policiesto show that progress
is possible;

 the restatement in the Rural White
Paper of support for a one-for-one (market/affordable) housing
policy requirement appears to have had little noticeable effect;

 we believe that the importance of
providing proper funding for social housing, including setting
the spending limits for providers at realistic levels within which
they can work, has been neither sufficiently acknowledged nor
acted upon by Government. We also believe there is a pressing
need for the effective integration of housing investment and planning
strategies at the regional and local levels, including the setting
of regional targets for the provision of affordable housing;

 possible mechanisms to promote the
allocation of sites in development plans specifically to meet
social housing needs as part of mixed communities should be seriously
considered;

 we would strongly support the removal
of subsidised market housing from the general definition of affordable
housing and limiting the definition to property for letting at
social rents in perpetuity or shared ownership/rented housing.